


i’m on an undercover mission (to steal your heart)

by jjuniechu



Category: Cravity (Band), X1 (Korea Band), mentions of other idols - Fandom
Genre: Crack, Espionage AU, M/M, No Angst, constant mentions of therapy, lapslock, literally pure crack, mentions of other Idols, mentions of torture and violence, they’re all a little bit insane here, think of Secret Service meets HYDRA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29785443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjuniechu/pseuds/jjuniechu
Summary: a knock off secret service au where minhee works as an intern in R&D (and is totally not whipped for the resident psychopath cutie), seongmin has everyone wrapped around his finger, taeyoung develops deadly viruses for fun, serim is Stressed™, wonjin keeps trying to assassinate jungmo, allen really needs a vacation and woobin has a really nice ass.orcravity work in a super secret espionage organization and they all need therapy.
Relationships: Kang Minhee/Song Hyeongjun, Park Serim/Seo Woobin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	1. oh he’s sweet but a psycho

**Author's Note:**

> this is just purely crack and something i wrote for fun please don’t take it seriously.

“graduated from MIT, honor roll, your parents own six hospitals in seoul alone, and you want to work as a slightly above minimum wage R&D intern in the most dangerous espionage organization in the country,” serim rattles off minhee’s stunning credentials, bemused, “you passed the psych evaluation too. shocking.” 

__

minhee tilts his head to the side, looking down at the company therapist in curious boredom. in the background, a test tube promptly explodes in blue flames, followed by a shrill scream and a class b fire extinguisher being yeeted into the fire. 

__

“how is that shocking?” 

__

“you think someone of sound and sane mind would want to work in the lovechild equivalent of the Secret Service and HYDRA as a low paying intern,” serim deadpans sarcastically. 

__

“well, you’re still working here.” 

__

“i was bribed by a man with an ass rivalling the plumpest of peaches and his five star michelin lunchboxes,” serim pouts defensively. 

__

“and i’m a bored heir with a PhD and MD at the ripe age of 23 and not a single clue what to do with them,” minhee chimes happily, “also i am of very stable mind, thank you for very much.” 

__

“kang, you didn’t even blink when the director put a gun to your head and told you to sign the non disclosure forms or he’ll skewer your eyeballs with a fountain pen.” 

__

minhee shrugs. 

__

“it wasn’t loaded.” 

__

“it’s still an _actual fucking firearm_ what the fuck—”

__

minhee flashbacks fondly to the moment where he was literally kidnapped into the director’s office, blackmailed with the death of everyone he knew and loved into secrecy, familiar metallic muzzle of the gun pressed to his temple while the director everyone lovingly fearfully nicknamed the Goblin smiled serenely at him and patiently told him to sign the documents if he wanted to live.

__

of course, minhee signed them with the innocence of a baby bird that had yet to experience the horrors of the espionage world, barely even flinching when the director released the trigger and the gun exploded into a myraid of colors, encasing minhee head to toe in pink sparkly glitter and confetti. the Goblin then threw his head back and _laughed_ for a minute straight before promptly throwing him and an honest-to-god terrified serim out of his office. 

__

and that was just ten minutes ago!

__

“....right. if you’re still sane enough to work here even after all that, i guess i’ll show you the ropes. come on, let's get you acquainted with this walking death trap.” 

* * *

_**  
  
**_ in all honesty, minhee thought that working in some super secret espionage agency would be a little….. _spicier_ ….than he imagined. 

__

like c’mon! where was the attempted kidnapping? the systems hacking leading to an automatic shutdown of all active servers? the threat of a bomb setting off in the middle of the biggest intersection of all of seoul? where was the _thrill_ ? where was the _flavor?_

__

so far — while he was being cooped up in the lab running errands and drafting blueprints under the strict supervision of kim wooseok, head of the research and development sector — the only somewhat incidents that followed in the span of one hour since he started work were: 

__

  1. three minor gas explosions
  2. someone accidentally spilling an entire vial of truth serum into the R&D sector’s filtration system — causing everyone to speak in extremely harsh truths for ten minutes (unfortunately leading to three melodramatic breakups and someone getting stabbed in the back — literally) 
  3. and a pen backfiring and covering the entire lab in sticky, spiderman worthy webs that would take half a day to dissolve — at best



__

quite frankly, there really wasn’t anything interesting to report. truly disappointing first hour of the day, minhee laments.

__

(except that maybe at least two of those fires were minhee-inflicted, he swore he never saw that vial of serum in his entire life, and he was only harmlessly tinkering with the stupid pen. how was _he_ supposed to know that it was still in alpha testing and extremely unpredictable?)

__

“well! that’s quite enough out of you today!” wooseok laughs, his smile not reaching his eyes, patting the taller boy on the back with so much force minhee almost faceplants into a wall, “but i think we can all agree that you should take a break, yeah?”

__

“but chief, it’s only been an hour —”

__

“a break,” wooseok seethes, pretty, PR smile twitching, “ _now_. off you trot, you volatile little monster. go terrorise some other department for an hour.” 

__

minhee’s jaw drops and his eyes sparkle brighter than the entire cosmos.

__

“ _really?”_

__

wooseok pales, mind immediately conjuring fourteen million scenarios where this could go wrong.

__

“never mind, i take it back. let me go find some menial task you can’t fuck u—”

__

a litany of bone chilling screams suddenly blasts from the rectangular bulge in wooseok’s lab coat. behind him, three interns flinch in the midst of building what looked like a cracked version of a deconstructed lightsaber (or a very girthy mechanical monster dildo). minhee hums to the melody of the screams — which he recognizes is the tune of SNSD’s Gee. whoever it was on the other line clearly had impeccable taste. 

__

wooseok picks up the call before the screaming could traumatize any more interns (they simply did not have enough in the budget to schedule any more group therapy sessions). the R&D head doesn’t get a word in before a long, drawn out, pitched whine leaves the speaker.

__

“ _hi hi hi! how’s my favorite hyungie in the whole wide world?_ ” 

__

a low, childlike voice with a hint of satoori, minhee notes, probably not a local.

__

wooseok sighs exasperatedly, but not with a hint of fondness. 

__

“what do you want, jun-ah? you can’t be calling me in the middle of the day for nothing.” 

__

the person on the other line giggles flirtily, their high pitched laughter bordering on psychotic. minhee’s curiosity piques. just what was a classy, pretty, somewhat dignified man like wooseok doing being associated with someone so…. _unhinged_?

__

_minhee, you work for an organization that responds to about one world threat a week, you signed up for this shit,_ the rational part of minhee’s brain rants, and minhee has the audacity to turn that part of his brain off because, why not. self preservation was for wimps anyway.

__

“ _rude! can’t i say hello to the prettiest, loveliest, most generous hyung in the entire universe?_ ” 

__

“flattery will get you nowhere, child,” wooseok chuckles, preening at the praise regardless. 

__

minhee hears a loud thud on the other end, and a pained, muffled scream following after. 

__

“is he….calling you in the middle of a torture session?” minhee whispers, eyes alight in childlike wonder. wooseok lazily bats a hand at him and mouths out the words “torture _and_ interrogation” to correct him.

__

“get to the point, kid. what do you want? i’m a little busy trying to find this troublesome intern of mine a job he can’t tamper, destroy, or set on fire.”

__

“i didn’t destroy anything!”

__

“shush, spawn of satan.” 

__

the person on the other line giggles again, and minhee can’t help the multitude of parasitic butterflies fluttering in his chest. how can someone’s laugh be so adorable yet manic at the same time?

__

“ _weeeell….i’m kinda smashing someone’s kneecaps right now and i maaaaybe got a little too excited and….broke a few things that aren’t skulls or bones....”_

__

minhee can already feel wooseok age twenty years by the way the older man facepalms and sighs like he’s heading into retirement.

__

“.... _and maaaaybe there isn’t enough in the T &I budget to replace them and i don’t wanna write a five page report on why we need to increase the budget so can i pretty please with entrails on top borrow some from your lab? _” 

__

the caller’s voice, despite being saccharinely sweet, carried an underlying tone of warning and promise of excruciating pain if wooseok did not comply. wooseok — the epitome of calm and boredom — only rolls his eyes at the not so-subtle request disguised as a threat. 

__

“and you promise you won’t break them?” wooseok asks dryly. 

__

instantly, the caller’s tone changes.

__

“of course not! i’ll treat them like how i treated my aunt!”

__

“that’s not very reassuring. you anaesthetized her before forcing her to watch as you dissected her body and harvested her organs for twelve hours straight.”

__

“i did it out of familial love,” the caller swoons, and minhee swears he can see hearts flying out of the speaker. 

__

“you’re clinically insane,” wooseok states, but not without a loving, almost brotherly smile adorned on his face, “buy me chicken feet and i’ll send my intern down with your tools in ten minutes.” 

__

minhee hears a loud cheer and an “ _i love you hyungie_!” from the other line before the call cuts abruptly. wooseok lets a sigh of relief before turning to minhee, who had been standing awkwardly the whole time and eavesdropping onto their mildly concerning conversation. 

__

“you heard the kid. i’ll get you the tools and text you the coordinates to T&I —”

__

“chief, who _was_ that?” 

__

wooseok stares down the young, impressionable intern grimly, hands moving quickly to gather the tools.

__

“your judge, jury and executioner. oh. and surgeon. he’s really good at cutting open bodies. it’s his pride and joy. harvested a kidney under an hour once. no anesthesia too.” 

__

_fascinating,_ minhee wows quietly, ignoring the way wooseok lugs and chugs down a suspicious looking flask with a distinct odor of alcohol from under the desk, _what a fascinating individual._

_**  
**_

* * *

_**  
  
**_

minhee doesn’t think twice at the worried glances and terrified shrieks sent his way when he asks for directions to one song hyeongjun’s personal interrogation room. 

__

they either looked like they were five seconds away from having a heart attack, started openly praying for his sanity, or whispered bets on how long it would take before he started begging for therapy.

__

“it’s right down the hallway, room 10B, pass code is 301102. say, are you looking for a death wish?” minhee finally gets a semi-sane response in the form of a small, petite-looking boy with white blonde hair, doe-like eyes and a beauty mark on his nose.

__

the question isn’t asked out of mockery or even concern. in fact, it’s purely morbid curiosity. 

__

minhee stares down at the clearly younger boy, wrapped in a pastel pink knitted sweater, sleeves going past his hands and giving off the air of someone who could wrap the entire world around his little pinky with a single smile and he _enjoy_ it. and his cheeks! his chubby squishy looking cheeks! minhee would pinch them if the kid wasn’t casually playing with a knife with the dexterity of a seasoned professional. 

__

“my supervisor sent me on an errand,” minhee explains, gently jostling the crate of questionable looking items in his arms. the scalpel and hammer he could understand, but why the _salt shaker_? 

__

the smaller boy nods and hums, and picks up the salt shaker as if he’s reading minhee’s mind. minhee would find this discovery absolutely terrifying if he were actually of sane mind. which he wasn’t.

__

“ever heard of rubbing salt in a wound?” minhee watches, mesmerised as the boy twirls the shaker with his fingertips, a gentle, humorous smile growing on his pretty, innocent looking face, voice high pitched and airy, “it stings quite deliciously, especially on a freshly open wound. hyeongjunnie hyung must be in a playful mood today.” 

__

minhee nods dumbly as the boy promptly returns the innocent looking item into the crate before leaning forward, saccharine smile still etched on his face. minhee thinks he’s about to get stabbed — he’d be okay with it, he thinks — when he feels something rectangular being slipped into his lab coat pocket.

__

“my name is seongmin, code name Bunny. nice to meet you, minhee hyung of R&D. you should go now, hyeongjunnie hyung doesn’t like being kept waiting.” 

__

and with that, seongmin scampers off with a skip to his step, waving at minhee with a childlike giggle before quietly disappearing into the crowd of officers. 

__

it takes minhee — still dazed — a second to realize that seongmin had pickpocketed his company ID, quickly scanned and read his personal information, without minhee even noticing the kid was in possession of it. 

__

_how terrifying,_ minhee thinks in awe. 

__

minhee comes to a realization that he just spent the past two minutes staring into the spot where seongmin once stood, before speed walking towards the interrogation room in urgency, not wanting to get maimed for being even half a second to his near apparent death. 

__

_this place just gets better and better_.

_**  
**_

* * *

_**  
  
**_

“say, hyung.” 

__

“pyo, please don’t talk while there is a literal nuclear weapon in your hands.” 

__

“yea yea whatever. did you really just send the fresh blood down to interrogation?”

__

“your point being? oh for the love of seungyoun’s blue balls _please put the core reactor down before you kill us all_ —”

__

“you sent our newest intern to T&I. to deliver tools to a lovable borderline psychopath who only passed psych eval because he blackmailed the officers with medieval torture and castration. in the middle of interrogation. probably drenched in blood and entrails and god knows what.” 

__

“careful pyo, it almost sounds like you care — _PUT. THE REACTOR. DOWN._ ” 

__

“oh, i don’t. i’m just reminding you that the last time we sent an intern down to _him_ , they came back with trauma and a lawsuit.” 

__

“....”

__

“fortunately for us, the NDA covered that little fuck up. but god, hyung, the _therapy bills_ —”

__

“....”

__

“....”

__

“....pyo, get me the tranq gun.” 

__

“only if you let me and woongi fill up the death ray shell with nerf bullets.”

__

“hahaha — no. now get me my fucking gun.” 

__

“hmph. spoilsport.” 

__

* * *

minhee stands in front of the giant, towering metal door, crate of torture items pressed protectively to his chest. the keypad for the access code is just right there, but should he still knock? is it _rude_ to knock if someone was in the middle of an interrogation? 

__

moral dilemma, moral dilemma, minhee panics, before deciding to give a set of three knocks on the door, heart thumping wildly in his chest. 

__

he didn’t know what exactly he was so nervous for. he wasn’t scared — intimidated maybe, but not _scared_ . he feared death as much as he feared the tiny little shit of a chihuahua that lived in the apartment next door that went absolutely fucking rabid whenever minhee so much as _breathed_ in its direction.

__

(aka minhee simply did not feel death. only crippling disappointment.)

__

minhee decides to wait for a few moments to pass, simply staring at the gigantic metal door in front of him. minhee would’ve probably stood there for the entire afternoon if someone didn’t tap him on the shoulder and coughed.

__

“....the room is soundproof by the way. he can’t hear you.”

__

_he’s probably too occupied listening to the screams of his victims to hear you,_ goes unspoken. 

__

“o-oh,” minhee flushes. how embarrassing, “thank you for telling me. uh….”

__

“cha. i mean chajun. junho. cha junho. god, i’m going to leave now. bye.”

__

the other man takes off like he’s late for a cult meeting, and minhee is left alone again. 

__

mustering up his courage, minhee quickly taps out the code to the door, and a breath of relief rushes out of him at the sound of the AI voicing his entry and the door cracks open ominously, leading into a dimly lit contained room that absolutely reeked of the tangy scent of iron and metal and salty tears of the sinners. 

__

minhee expected blood, guts being strung about, maybe an operating table. or a torture chair. definitely screaming. lots of crying and begging for death. 

__

what minhee does not expect — as indicated when he drops his entire crate of tools onto the ground with a surprised clatter — is to be bestown upon the sight of the most beautiful scene he’d ever seen in his twenty three years of living. 

__

disregarding the crying, wailing, brutally broken and bleeding man sitting on what seemed to be an operating chair. the presence that enraptures minhee’s attention is a small, lithe figure in an oversized, bright yellow sweater and white shorts, swaying side to side opposite of the blubbering victim, kicking his slender, unblemished legs lazily into the bleeding man’s shins to the beat of the music in his ears — much to the latter’s agony. minhee can’t help but coo at the other boy’s adorable fluffy brown hair, looking almost like an angel with his curls imitating a halo around his head.

__

it’s a little sacrilegious, considering the situation. but the boy is humming a tune sounding eerily familiar to 2NE1’s Come Back Home and minhee is _gone_. 

__

_minhee doesn’t know what love is, but this must be it_. 

__

what’s even more peculiar is how the boy — despite the murderous, gory scene he’s presented with — is completely clean of blood, not a speck of it on his pretty pastel clothes or skin aside from his hands. now _that_ takes finesse. 

__

the other boy turns around sharply, noticing the loud thud of the crate falling, and minhee can’t breathe. 

__

he’s _beautiful_. 

__

“you’re late,” hyeongjun chirps, plucking the airpod from his ear and tossing it onto the workbench that just so happened to be fully equipped with enough torture weapons to make even the sickest of psychopaths uneasy, “what’s the usual punishment for tardies? dismemberment? strangulation? electroshock therapy?” 

__

minhee just continues staring at hyeongjun in awe, a light blush creeping up his ears. the dissonance between cute face and unsettling words is downright _charming_ , and minhee thinks. damn, he’s fucked in the head.

__

“i’m kidding! i’ll just make you write a ten thousand word essay on why IU deserves a grammy.”

__

“make it twenty and we have a deal.”

__

minhe’s chest burns when hyeongjun smiles brilliantly at him, the giant smear of blood trailing down his lower lip making him even more adorably attractive than he should.

__

“an intern with guts, how rare —” before minhee can even catch a breath, he’s being pinned against the wall in the time span it takes for him to react, a bloodstained hand gripping his chin and tilting his gaze down to hyeongjun’s eye level, the shorter of the two’s eyes alight with interest as he inspects the angles and texture of minhee’s face like he’s a particularly fascinating test subject.

__

hyeongjun smirks, obviously liking what he’s seeing.

__

“— with a pretty face too.” 

__

_asdhasbjabhslasbdjkdhsakl,_ minhee’s brain short circuits.

__

minhee can barely even utter a single word of reply, too taken aback by this bloodstained beauty literally _pinning him against the fucking wall like a scene from some shitty shoujo manga._

__

hyeongjun tilts his head to the side cutely, his grip on minhee’s chin loosening by a fraction.

__

“say, what’s your name? i need to know who i’m making write a twenty thousand word essay on one of the best artists of our decade.”

__

minhee snaps out of his lovestruck reverie.

__

“m-my name is min—”

__

before minhee can reveal himself, the heavy metal door slams open with enough force to dent it followed by a mighty war chant that sounds suspiciously like “FOR THE BUDGET!” before minhee feels something sharp stab him in the neck and his vision blurs.

__

his eyes start to flutter shut and his legs give up on him and he promptly faceplants into hyeongjun’s arms, before muttering a set of words that will forever change his fate for years to come.

__

“you’re….really pretty….”

__

and then he blacks out. 


	2. i’m a bad guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> serim wants to retire, wooseok wants to get patented, and taeyoung is Whipped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi im just shitting out backstory xoxo

out of the many “hobbies” and “skills” song hyeongjun picked up over the years, he can very confidently and proudly say that no one — aside from the Goblin himself — had ever been able to outwit him in a deadly game of lies and deception.

(or in serim’s words: psychologically and physically traumatizing the ever loving shit out of poor sods who ended up on the wrong side of the justice system.)

case in point: when his lovely aunt thought she’d successfully pulled the wool over his eyes after she paid off that shitty lawyer into forging her sister’s will, leaving her with sole custody of hyeongjun and his very sizable inheritance that she burned every single penny on on jewels and young male escorts she had no shame bringing home. 

— only for hyeongjun to slap out a reverse uno card on her wrinkly musty ass with the severed head of the failure of a lawyer she paid off, presented elegantly on top of her bursting vanity drawer, hyeongjun swinging a wine bottle into the nape of her skull before she could even utter a cry for help. 

or when he’d manage to evade a rather persistent loan shark his aunt was heavily indebted to after her murder, moving swiftly and discreetly through dark alleyways, murdering five cronies before brutally maiming and traumatizing the sixth and sending him back to the warehouse with several toes and fingers missing — as a friendly reminder to  _ not _ look for him.

he had a  _ really _ close call once though, and it was mostly attributed to seongmin — when the youngest was sent to kill him quietly for “disrupting local businesses”. 

and while hyeongjun had some pretty skewed morals — and a rather bloody kill count on his ledger at the tender age of sixteen — he very simply did not like to harm children.  _ especially _ children as adorable and clingy as seongmin — even if the latter  _ did _ try to kill him with a  _ needle _ of all things. 

hyeongjun even managed to worm his way into a pretty lucrative deal with S.S.E. after the Goblin took interest in his….“activities”.

impressed by how hyeongjun managed to convince his most ruthless assassin that it was in his best interest to  _ not  _ kill him, hyeongjun promised to work for S.S.E. as the organization’s personal bloodhound, interrogator and strategist until the day he died (compensated, of course) on the condition that his debts were paid and hyeongjun was given free rein on how he was allowed to “execute” his tasks. 

it was if hyeongjun was  _ born _ with the innate talent to sniff out deception and bloodlust, followed by his damn near inhuman ability of being able to come out on top — or at least reasonably unscathed — from whatever life decided to throw at him. his ability to read people like an open book and plan for every situation imaginable could bring even a seasoned honeypot to their knees. 

serim calls it paranoia, hyeongjun calls it the only reason why he’s still alive. 

so when a peculiar and bizarre event occurs that completely averts all of hyeongjun’s carefully planned precautions and calculations, toppling over the little safeguard of lies hyeongjun built up so painstakingly over the years, he is forced to come to a realization that there is one more variable in this god’s piss green earth whose existence he is  _ not  _ prepared for. 

“ _ you’re….really pretty _ .”

hyeongjun is confused. baffled.  _ intrigued _ , he thinks, as the drugged intern falls dramatically into his arms. only to be violently snatched away by his now second favorite hyung wooseok, who mutters a swift apology that the department simply cannot afford any more hits to their budget before the enigma that is the mysterious IU-loving intern is stolen away from him.

(but not without a casual wave goodbye and a “see you at lunch” from dongpyo as the two escape the confines of hyeongjun’s lovely little torture corner.)

for once in his life, hyeongjun doesn’t know what in the everloving fuck just happened. 

he turns to the bleeding man in the chair for a second opinion.

“what do you think that was all about?” 

the man whimpers. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


“you know,” serim groans loudly, thirty years adding to his lifespan as he accepts the incoming call from his reason for early retirement, “when you forced me at knifepoint for my personal number just in case you had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the night, i was expecting you to — you know —  _ actually  _ be having a nervous breakdown in the middle of the night.”

blatantly ignoring serim’s semi-annoyed greeting, hyeongjun wonders if he should cheer the older man up with a little harmless threat to his manhood. 

“but instead you called me. at 3am. because you’re attracted to a guy with — apparently — no self preservation skills or a functioning brain,” serim yawns sleepily, and hyeongjun can hear the other man settle something down a marble tabletop, the gentle sound hum of a kettle boiling whirring through the line.

“is that why i don’t feel the urge to strap him down to an operating table and harvest his kidney?” hyeongjun wonders honestly.

serim shudders. sometimes he can’t tell if hyeongjun is fucking with him or he’s actually considering doing it. he isn’t paid  _ nearly _ enough to be the 24 hour consultant to a sassy, apathetic baby-looking psychopath who threatens him with castration at least twice a session. 

then again, hyeongjun hasn’t murdered him yet. maimed, yes. but never  _ murdered _ . so maybe he should thank whatever higher power up there for actually doing their fucking job for once. 

“i’m going to ignore whatever you just said. but yes, it sounds like you took a non-platonic interest in someone because they professed their attraction towards you despite being placed in a situation where they should honestly not be having those feelings in the first place now will you  _ please  _ hang up —”

“they’re writing a twenty thousand word essay on IU for me,” hyeongjun cuts him off, the tone of his voice ending with what seemed to be  _ adoration _ , and serim has to fight back every instinct in his body to not end the call right there and then out of horror. 

“....good for you.” 

“ _ hyuuuung _ , i don’t know what to  _ doooo _ . i’m feeling the same way i did when i was getting chased by M.N.E.T agents during the Grand MONSTA X Rescue, except i don’t feel like leading him into a mechanical death trap or shooting him with a poison nerf gun,” hyeongjun whines, kicking his feet obstinately in the air like a child having a tantrum, his mattress squeaking obnoxiously underneath him.

_ oh my ruby,  _ serim shuts his eyes, not liking where this conversation is going,  _ this psychotic little fucker is in love.  _

“you could always just take him out.” serim immediately regrets his choice of words. 

“with a sniper or on a date? because i think i can pull a favor from ddeongminnie if it’s the first option. he’s been wanting to practice shooting moving targets for awhile.”

“what the — with a date you dumbass.” 

“huh. that’s not as fun.” 

serim refrains from pulling the plug and pouring the entire kettle of boiling water over his head. 

which dynasty did he piss off for him to deserve to be dealing with an emotionally stunted psychopath experiencing the sweet inklings of love for the first time? 

“hyeongjun-ah. please answer me this: do you even know his name?” 

“nope!” hyeongjun admitted unashamedly, “wooseokie hyung dragged him away before i could get an answer out of him and refused to tell me his name even after i offered him the severed head of his mortal enemy as compensation.”

“that’s awful.”

“right! i was even planning to store it in a pretty custom made ice box i got from paris —”

“no you shit i mean the offering of the severed head of his enemy like what the fuck who would even make an enemy out of wooseok hyung anyway that’s like asking to get skinned in your sleep —”

“seungyoun hyung.”

serim lets his head bang against the wood of his liquor cabinet and counts down to three in his head. he  _ really _ is not paid enough for this.

“i — hyeongjunnie, seungyoun hyung isn’t his mortal enemy.” 

“then why does wooseokie hyung keep complaining about the bruises on his neck and how his hips hurt every time he stays over at seungyoun hyung’s place? there  _ must _ be some sort of abuse going on —”

serim’s face colors and he immediately drops his mug to the ground, ignoring the loud shatter of the glass as he  _ screeches _ into the speaker to prevent hyeongjun from going into any more detail. 

“i am not hearing that, i am pretending not to hear that, i did not need to know about our hyungs’ sexual proclivities, i am hanging up  _ right now — _ ” __

“wait! hyung! what am i supposed to do? i don’t even know that intern’s name!”

“infiltrate the R&D department, interrogate someone, blackmail the director, you’re a spy for crying out loud now excuse me but i am evicting myself out of this narrative now GOODBYE!” 

before hyeongjun can even mutter a threat to serim’s babymaking organs, the line cuts off, as indicated by the damning beep over the phone speaker. hyeongjun stares down at his phone, a little put off by the useful information exchange. 

and then, a lightbulb goes off in his head. 

wait.

serim is right. he  _ is  _ a spy. a damn good one too, even if he’s a little mentally unstable around the edges. 

so….what does a spy do?

hyeongjun giggles to himself, hugging his phone to his chest, as euphoria fills his lungs at the thought of seeing the new anomaly again. 

_ they investigate through extremely illegal and immoral means, of course!  _

* * *

“ASHDABJSHBAJL _ CHOOOO— _ ”

“god bless you gremlin child, why does your sneeze sound like a keysmash? also — stay still.” 

minhee’s eyes widen into saucers when wooseok fiercely brandishes a cleaning spray of what seems to be a giant, extremely potent bottle of sanitizer and starts  _ spritzing  _ it directly into minhee’s face. minhee’s body reacts before his brain can even process what’s happening.

“child i told you to stay still!” 

“CHIEF THAT IS A BOTTLE OF FUCKING SANITISER YOU’RE SPRAYING! INTO! MY EYES! OWOWOWOW—!”

“ah yes, it burns nicely doesn’t it? that just means it’s working —”

minhee ducks and does several impressive backflips and self defence maneuvers around the mostly empty lab as wooseok gaily skips to chase after him, still casually spritzing the bottle at the giant intern’s crumbling defenses. the other interns and staff members continue working on their projects or watch impassively as if this was a completely normal occurrence on a thursday afternoon. 

“before you ask, that’s what wooseok hyung calls his ‘Holy Anti-Birth Water’,” dongpyo explains, sipping on his orange juice while swinging his legs on a lab stool, muttering instructions to woongi who’s deconstructing the promised death ray at his workstation, “it’s supposed to be able to melt metal, but for now it just acts as a really efficient hand sanitizer. burns like shit though, hyung is in the process of patenting it. so far it’s gotten a lukewarm response from the Board of Directors.” 

“hey!” wooseok shoves the spray bottle in dongpyo’s direction, glaring at him with enough venom to kill a horse, “once i get the potency to a level that can destroy titanium without melting the material bottle, i’m making  _ you  _ my first human test subject —”

dongpyo puts his hands up in surrender, completely nonplussed.

“oh no. i surrender to the excellency of your holy water, hyung. may you remember me after you get famous.”

wooseok puffs his chest out in pride. “as you fucking should.”

minhee dramatically passes over one of the lab counters, panting at the mini death exercise his superior put him through, “and you sprayed that at me, knowing it could kill me.” 

“first of all, the most it would’ve given you was just a couple of chemical burns. secondly — you’ve literally faced death in the face.  _ twice _ . and you’re scared of a little spray bottle?” 

minhee stares at wooseok dead in the eye, unimpressed. 

“my lovely devout catholic uncle used to douse me with holy water whenever i had one of my panic attacks. forgive me for being mildly traumatized.” 

“ah….PTSD, understandable. here, have a juice box,” wooseok reaches down to the one of the many mini fridges under the tables — that they totally did not abuse the budget to stock up — and tosses the packaged drink to minhee, who catches it with his face, “so what’s your story?” 

minhee mumbles, disgruntled, still accepting the drink regardless, “what do you mean story?”

wooseok snorts. “let me guess, you’re a gifted child with a not so healthy childhood, had a shit ton of expectations weighed on you because you were somewhat better at one thing than everyone else, in which you probably snapped and acted out and rebelled against it or accepted it and ended up burning yourself out in the process. oh, and you probably also either have some form of trauma, depression, or anxiety. occasionally you hit the mental illness jackpot and manage to get all three, you poor sod.” 

minhee stares at woosoek, jaw slack, before nudging eunsang who was in the process of making a giant macaron next to him. the red-haired boy was happily humming a cute anime song while writing a gift note that said  _ to cha cha: i hope this macaron conveys the enormity of my love for you. i may have added a few dangerous chemicals in it. do not consume. xoxo eunsangie. _

“did the chief work as some sort of FBI profiler before?” minhee whispers, the red-haired boy steadfastly ignoring the other’s inquiry in the process of making what was probably an extremely poisonous pastry that would probably turn poor junho green, or at least make him shit a lot. 

“i can hear you, you brat. and no. that is  _ literally _ the story of twenty percent of this entire organization and ninety percent of this department. take it as some really fucked rite of passage.” 

“like a frat initiation?” 

“yeah, except frat initiations don’t leave you with permanent trauma.” 

“i beg to differ, the frat seungyoun hyung brought me to during the spring days of my youth gave me very much permanent trauma,” dongpyo shudders. 

“pyo, honey, he brought you to a group orgy, not a frat. he was also coked out of his mind and i  _ will  _ kill him for it.”

“you were there too though?”

“OKAY MOVING ON —”

minhee tries not to snigger at the implications, before recalling something wooseok mentioned awhile ago.

“wait, hyung. what do you mean when you said i faced death  _ twice _ ? the director aside, did you mean hyeongjun? he seemed nice. and um. pretty.” 

wooseok and dongpyo stare at minhee like he’s grown two heads. 

“no offence, but you must be pretty fucked in the head if you think that scene from hell was anywhere near pretty,” dongpyo contemplates loudly, “honestly i can’t tell if i should be in awe or terrified.” 

“how rude, i passed the psych eval.” 

“minhee,  _ everyone  _ passes the psych eval,  _ hyeongjun  _ passed the psych eval.” 

“through murderous means!” eunsang pipes up. 

“he still doesn’t seem very death-like to me though,” minhee protests. 

“oh minhee minhee minhee….hyeongjunnie  _ is  _ Death. if Death ever met him, he’d piss himself all the way back to the pits of Tartarus . i’m surprised you were still in one piece when we found you,” wooseok sighs empathically, reaching up to pat the younger’s head.

“you mean when you  _ shot me with a tranquilizer — _ ”

“we saved your life!”

“ _ i slept for two days. _ ” 

“oh wow, my modified serum really worked?” eunsang claps excitedly, finally pulled away from his work and staring at minhee with the fascination of a scientist who just found the cure for stupidity, “did you feel anything when you woke up? anxiety? nausea? it’s kind of a work in progress, please understand. it’s originally supposed to knock you out for a day but are you typically a heavy sleeper? do you mind getting shot again so we can record you? here, you can fill out these reports —” 

wooseok goes “aww” and abandons patting minhee to coddle the excitable red-haired boy, fussing over him in a disturbingly motherly way that minhee thinks deserves a place in the Twilight Zone Top 10 Weirdest Moments. 

“aigooo eunsangie-ya you’re so cute like this,” wooseok coos, “i’m so glad your serum actually worked.”

“....what did you mean  _ actually work _ ?” minhee asks curiously, popping the juice box open and sipping it. 

dongpyo coughs. 

“we used it on seungwoo hyung once back when it was still in alpha testing. he slept for so long we had to put him on an IV drip. we’re debating on calling it the ‘Sleeping Beauty’ serum.” 

“catchy.” 

dongpyo beams. “thanks! i coined it. the Board rejected it though. said there was no point putting someone to sleep for that long when we already had cryogenic chambers.”

“i see….how did this seungwoo hyung wake up?”

dongpyo grins with so much diabolical intent woongi inches away from him.

“when wooseok hyung kissed him on the li—”

“begone, satan spawn,” wooseok manages to successfully spray dongpyo with the superpowered sanitizer, the younger hissing as the liquid squirted violently onto his skin.

“ _ you still kissed him—” _

“i was distributing the antidote orally, you shit,” wooseok spritzes the sanitizer even more, relishing the squeaks and screeches of the younger boy, “please ignore dongpyo, he’s a massive compulsive  _ liar— _ ”

“not lying if tongues touched!” 

“did they?” minhee asks innocently.

“i will disintegrate your bones my child,” wooseok threatens half-seriously, waving the horrendous, vicious sanitizer at him, “also i will reiterate again: stay away from hyeongjunnie. there’s a reason why we kept you away from him the first place!” 

“chief you literally sent me down there yourself —”

wooseok waves him off dismissively, “technicalities! anyway, don’t get your hopes up. he may look cute and uwu but just remember he’s literally a bloodthirsty superspy who’s probably really busy and the chances of you running into him again is —”

“oh, hyeongjune sent me a sticker on KKT, looks like he just dropped down from new york,” dongpyo grins, showing the screen to the other two R&D staff, “hey minhee, do you want his number —”

“REMEMBER! THE! BUDGET!” wooseok shrills, cutting dongpyo off with an overly zealous spritz of the satanic sanitizer, the other boy screaming and ducking behind woongi, “i don’t want to pay for some upstart intern’s medical fees  _ again _ ! do you know how  _ much _ they docked from  _ my  _ pay to—” 

“i have my own therapist, you know,” minhee deadpans. 

“it’s the moral obligation behind it!” wooseok pouts, folding his arms indignantly, “anyway, just stay away from him. the last time an intern tried to hit on him it took three washes of eunsang’s Super Special Bleach to get rid of all the blood.” 

“oh tell me more,” minhee’s curiosity piques. 

“don’t get too excited, it was wooseokie hyung who blew him up,” dongpyo snorts, somehow managing to text hyeongjun (probably) at mach 5 speed while staring at minhee in the eye, a hint of steely warning in them despite his joking tone, “all the dude did was look at hyeongjunnie weird and next thing you know hyung had the rest of the interns cleaning up the his guts and piss, the prick.” 

“we needed test subjects for the Mindfuck machine, how was i supposed to know his head would explode?” wooseok rolls his eyes, “anyway, promise me you’ll stay away from hyeongjunnie okay? don’t go seeking him out on your own or something life endangering like that. you seem alright and you haven’t done anything that would incite murder from my gay damaged soul and also we haven’t stocked up enough bleach to clean your remains if you fuck up.” 

“alright, i promise,” minhee agrees, crossing his fingers behind his back, biting back a smile, “but that just means it’s alright if hyeongjun finds  _ me _ , correct?”

wooseok narrows his eyes at him, before paling. dongpyo cackles. 

“ _ you little sh—! _ ” 

  
  


* * *

  
  


being a security hacker is an oddly cushy job, taeyoung contemplates, as he performs his mandatory software checks for the fifth time that day, before turning to the second monitor to type out a pretty vicious code he calls the “Birthday” virus that forces every device that comes across it to stream NCT’s “Make A Wish” for ten hours straight. 

it’s a very tedious, meticulous process, and taeyoung doesn’t want some other wannabe STEM engineering student to unhack it less than a day. so he runs test after test after test to make sure nobody aside from someone of  _ his _ caliber can crack the code. he has a damn legacy to uphold, after all. 

he’s just doing God’s work, he insists — whenever some annoying boomer asks him why he’s developing such a useless code. and to retaliate to  _ that  _ line of questioning, he accidentally leaks their fifty Facebook messages of their illicit affair to their poor, hardworking wife, mom of two at home. 

taeyoung isn’t petty. he just thinks people who don’t stan NCT have no taste. 

just as he’s halfway done uploading the virus on the dumpster platform that is Twitter, an immediate uprising of whispers explodes from every inch of the room at the heavy sound of heeled boots stomping its way across the department. 

_ “oh no the Blood Hound is here again.”  _

_ “god fucking — mingyu get the mop.”  _

_ “is that...Gucci?”  _

the murmurs gradually die down to a hush as the footsteps get louder and louder, the intruder making their merry way towards taeyoung’s station. the rainbow haired man peeks up from the screen, pausing the upload, eyebrow raised in curiosity. after a moment’s realization, taeyoung’s face brightens brilliantly.

“hyeongjunnie hyung! welcome back! how was new york? is that bag for me?” 

song hyeongjun, aka the rumored Blood Hound of S.S.E., returns taeyoung’s smile with a shark-like grin on his own. ignoring the fact that the hyeongjun was literally drenched head to toe in blood, donning intimidating black biker gear and gloves and probably tracking blood (likely not his own) all over the floor, taeyoung was truly happy to see his favorite same-aged hyung back in town again. 

hyeongjun laughs at taeyoung’s expectant expression and carefully drops the fancy Gucci bag on the hacker’s messy work desk, taking care not to jostle the many limited edition standees, lightsticks, and holo photocard collection cluttering his station. hyeongjun lowers his head slightly to take a peek at whatever taeyoung was working on.

“ooh, a new streaming virus? why didn’t you just rewrite the one you did for Zombie?” 

taeyoung rolls his eyes and scoots over on his spinny chair to make room for hyeongjun, who carelessly plops himself all over taeyoung’s lap, fluffy head of hair resting on his best friend’s shoulders. taeyoung instinctively leans into him and takes a slow inhale. lavender, and a hint of milk, though mostly overshadowed by the odor of blood that seemed to permanently imprint itself onto hyeongjun’s skin.

“because hyungwonnie hyung found out and told minho hyung to tell ME to delete my entire program and gave me a whole lecture about code of conduct and shit and why i shouldn’t use my skills for self interest and bla bla bla.”

“wow minho hyung must absolutely hate you right now.”

“minho hyung came to ME and told me if i ever wanted to do something illegal like that again, to at least not be stupid enough to get it traced back to me.” 

hyeongjun laughs at the thought of it and then yawns, burrowing his head sleepily into his best friend’s neck, humming contentedly as taeyoung gently rubs at the exposed skin between his crop top and leather pants. 

“your new hair looks good on you by the way,” taeyoung notes, hand sneakily curling around hyeongjun’s waist to play with his now dyed, orange locks, “it’s not your usual image, though.” 

hyeongjun makes a pleased sound, hooking his leg over the hacker’s thigh, leaning over the screen to scan the perfectly written code. taeyoung watches him carefully, eyes tracing over the assassin’s perfectly impenetrable poker face. 

“it was an undercover mission. the higher ups had me infiltrate a drug smuggling syndicate in the rectum of queens. our mole notified us that when new management took over after that little territory spat, they started smuggling more than just drugs.”

hyeongjun’s face darkens and his tone quickly dips into something more ugly and sinister and a chill runs through the room, whatever activity that was currently happening at that moment coming to a harsh pause at hyeongjun’s barely concealed anger. taeyoung’s hand squeezes hyeongjun’s shoulder protectively. 

hyeongjun isn’t exactly the dazzling example of morality, but even  _ he _ has lines he doesn’t cross. 

“you don’t normally get sent on these kinds of missions though. the last time you went on one you got so annoyed you shot a high profile senator in the middle of a charity gala.”

hyeongjun shrugs, tension slowly releasing from his shoulders as taeyoung massages the knots on his back, the familiar motion cutting the darkness clouding his mind as if he never even spiralled in the first place. 

people who looked at this scene for the first time would simply assume that taeyoung and hyeongjun were close friends when in reality their relationship was a little more….complicated. 

to put it bluntly, they had what wonjin coined an “anti-villain slash morality pet dynamic” going on. when hyeongjun was pushed too far to the edge, teetering off the bedrock to pure insanity, taeyoung was there to pull him back into the light. 

taeyoung was like his rock, his anchor on reality. 

and while hyeongjun was just too far gone down the extremist end of the grey morality spectrum — taeyoung didn’t care. it wasn’t like he was  _ completely _ apathetic or agreed with hyeongjun’s morally questionable actions or anything. but to taeyoung, hyeongjun was his friend. and to hyeongjun, taeyoung was the dazzling epitome of purity and childlike innocence hyeongjun swore to protect — even if he could never have it. 

“our mole got compromised. had to act quickly and get both our asses out of there. maimed a few morons along the way. look, they even got blood all over my new combat boots!” 

hyeongjun delicately hitches a leg in the air, showing off his lovely expensive new footwear. taeyoung simply answers with an, “oooooo”.

“they’re lovely, aren’t they?”

taeyoung nods sagely. 

“the blood gives it authenticity.”

“i know right! you understand me so  _ well _ taeyoungie!” hyeongjun squeals, grabbing taeyoung’s grinning face with his bloodied aviator gloves and giving him a wet, dramatic kiss on his nose, making the younger giggle. 

god, he misses hyeongjun, so so  _ so much _ . even if the older man was gone for barely a week. 

taeyoung can’t help but smile dopily at the sight of a purely happy hyeongjun on his lap, still squeezing taeyoung’s cheeks in his palms, the warmth in his hands covering up the ridiculously hot blush taeyoung knows is taking over his entire body at hyeongjun’s casual affection. 

sure, his face is probably really wet and bloody right now but taeyoung doesn’t  _ care _ . 

“by the way taeyoungie….are you free?” 

the question comes completely out of nowhere, and taeyoung has to stop himself from getting  _ too  _ excited so he resorts to squeezing hyeongjun’s (extremely) tiny waist as a distraction.

“why do you ask? you up to something?” 

hyeongjun grins, dark brown eyes gleaming in mischief. 

“i need a favor from you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i rewrote this 7 times ajsdaksjbdaksbkj please save me

**Author's Note:**

> should i continue this i swear i have a love hate relationship with this au hasdbjahb


End file.
